Bio
Jon Field was born in Manchester, England in 1963, and was educated at Lancaster University, receiving his doctorate in 1998. After twenty years working in the United States, he now lives in Ipswich, England.
His work is the subject of a feature article in Art Papers: “Elegiac Documents: The Presidents’ Favorite Paintings” and was awarded ‘Best in Show’ for A Charge to Keep in Text + Texture, juried by internationally respected curator Dan Cameron. More recently, his work has been exhibited at AIR Galley, Manchester, England, and the Dora Maar House, Menerbes, France. It has been the subject of an interview with Chief Editor Steve Knudsen in ArtPulse magazine, the subject of a feature article at floromancy.org, and included in the current edition of drainmag.com, journal of contemporary art and culture.
Why does contemporary art matter?
In a world saturated with AI, where tools like ChatGPT and Midjourney grab headlines, the landscape of cultural production has taken on what Byung-Chul Han terms "smoothness." According to Han, this smooth culture serves to speed up the flow of information, communication, and capital.
My aim is to push back against this smoothness, whether the work be satirical (Day of the Locust), elegiac (The Painted Closet), or collaborative (The Desiring Machine).
Press
"Jon Field has re-invented history painting so that it is relevant for our time. Field is an artist, he is an historian; and his work questions the role of the artist and the historian simultaneously." (Steve Aishmann, Art Relish, 2021)
Maxwell’s Demon
Made of pins that puncture sheets of black velvet, these pictures bring to mind pixilation, radioactivity, molecular randomness, stars. These pictures are history paintings in the tradition of Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa.
See: http://artpulsemagazine.com/silver-a-conversation-with-jon-field
The Painted Closet
In the early seventeenth century, Lady Anne Bacon Drury of Suffolk, England, created a series of small allegorical pictures. For the past twelve months I have been re- working Lady Anne's project, recycling the history of Western art to my own ends.
See: https://www.floromancy.org/submit/2020/8/2/the-painted-closet-of-jonathan-david-field
Mottoes
Lady Anne’s paintings include a series of pithy life mottoes. A number of these - printed onto wooden panels - were recently displayed in public spaces in England, France and the United States. They are also included in the last edition of drainmag.com, journal of contemporary art and culture.
See: http://drainmag.com/mottoes/
The Desiring Machine
Dada artist Kurt Schwitters' ‘Desiring Machine’ was a continually changing, immersive environment. Its’ only principle was one of continuous fluid production, a dynamic process of adding and subtracting, of becoming.
Adopting this model, Field oversaw the construction of a Desiring Machine in Savannah, USA in March 2022.
See: https://eu.savannahnow.com/story/entertainment/2022/02/21/jon-field-the-desiring-machine-sulfur-studios-on-view-residency-savannah-ga/6845697001/